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Jordan contained his smile as he nodded. “It was in the report I give you every month. You know, the one you toss in the trash can after simply asking me if she’s safe and if she’s alive?”
Noah paced closer. Danger surrounded him, fury pulsed inside him.
“She’s dating.” His lips pulled back from his teeth furiously.
Jordan tilted his head and stared back at him. “And this is your business how? Nathan Malone is dead, wild card. Remember?”
Noah flinched. He jerked back as though stung, his expression instantly closing.
“Unlock the door,” Jordan ordered him coolly. “We have a briefing and a mission to complete.” He turned his attention to the files Tehya had brought in. “Noah.” Jordan lifted his head, staring back into those furious blue eyes. “Her husband didn’t want her. Did you think she’d wait on him forever?”
Perhaps that was exactly what a part of him had believed.
Noah took his seat slowly, forcing back emotion, forcing back the rage. He’d worked too many years at putting his past behind him, but somehow, in all those years, he’d never imagined Sabella allowing another man to touch her. Likely because Noah had never been able to touch another woman.
He had sworn himself to her. Heart, body, soul. All he was, all he could ever be, belonged to that woman.
The man that had been born from the ashes of hell in no way resembled Nathan Malone. He had known that the day he found some clarity in his mind, months after his rescue. He was no longer the man Sabella had married. But the man he had become still claimed that one part of Nathan Malone’s life. Noah Blake claimed Nathan’s wife.
As the others filtered into the room, Noah stared at Jordan Malone. He’d even forced himself to forget the fact that this was his uncle. That Rory was his brother, that Grandpop had been his base all his life. He’d let go of everything but the wife.
“Okay, here’s what we have.” The lights dimmed as Tehya passed out the files and Ian and Kira Richards stood to the side of the large-screened LCD monitor that hung on the wall across from the briefing table.
Five dead men, American, Russian, Israeli, Australian, and English. They were the Elite Operational Unit, code-named, marked by the sign of rebirth and of death. A black sun and a scarlet sword. Dead men. They had signed their lives away for the chance at vengeance.
Jordan and Ian commanded the group. The rest of Durango team, Reno, Kell, and Macey, were their backup. They knew who he was, what he was, what he had walked away from.
“The Black Collar Militia.” The first of the photos began to flash.
“Angelina Rodriguez, the wife of a Mexican-American Texas Senate hopeful, killed, their brand on her hip. ‘BCM’ was indeed branded on her slender hip. Emilio Rodriguez dropped out of the senatorial race when his wife’s body was found and a message indicating that his twin daughters would be next. The FBI covered the murder to allow an investigation into the BCM. Stated cause of death was accidental, due to the fact that she was found in her vehicle, in the bottom of a ravine not far out of Odessa where she had been visiting.”
The photos glared back at them from the screen. The woman was pretty. Long black hair, dark brown eyes. A generous smile in life, a grimace in death.
“Added to her death.” More photos, these of illegal Mexican aliens found throughout Texas and New Mexico. Victims, Noah knew, of illegal hunts. The BCM brand was buried on the flesh of their backs, some on the buttocks.
“We have a dozen hunts and deaths,” Jordan stated. “We have three dead FBI agents sent to investigate the information that BCM is based in Alpine. Two men, one female. Their bo
dies were mutilated beyond recognition, teeth pulled, fingers removed. DNA identified the bodies.”
The photos were horrifying. Burned, hacked, faces beaten until the features were obliterated.
“The Black Collar Militia is being coined a white supremacy group; they’re actually closer to a homeland terrorist organization.” Ian stepped forward at that point. “You have all the information in your files. Black Collar is centralized in Texas, but it’s moving swiftly into neighboring states. Rodriguez was only the most public figure they’ve targeted. Several so-called accidents at plants and manufacturing firms that use legal as well as illegal aliens have occurred. Owners have been kidnapped, tortured, their family members have had a variety of suspicious accidents, some fatal, some not.”
“And no one has identified the members?” Travis Caine, formerly British Secret Service, spoke up then, his light bluegray eyes narrowed as he stared back at Ian, then Jordan. “Isn’t that a bit unusual?”
“Each investigation focusing on them has ended in cases abruptly closed, or agents dying. This group has at least one highly placed government informant, perhaps more.”
“Public support of immigration laws is growing,” Nikolas Steele, formerly Russian Special Forces, said then.
“Nothing’s perfect,” Jordan breathed out roughly. “But this.” He pointed to the image of the dead agents. “Has to stop. Our job is to identify and interrogate the commander of the group located here, in Alpine. All signs lead here.”
“We have an Israeli, an Irish immigrant, and a Russian,” Noah said. “We should be able to target interest.”
“We also have this,” Jordan stated, and the screen flipped a satellite view of the garage Rory and Sabella owned.
Noah stared at it silently, aware of the looks directed his way.
“We keep her out of it,” he grated out.
